Avoiding Burnout
Our lives are filled with deadlines. The things we need to accomplish are never ending. After we have finished filing our tax returns, or submitting our projects in humanities class, we have to do another thing. If it continues as it is, then we will end up getting burnt out.
Burnout, according to psychologytoday.com, is a state of mental, emotion, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress.
It is easy to get burnt out by doing tasks we don't like. It feels like you have to drag yourself into doing certain task that is not meaningful to you. Today, I will be sharing with you two ways you can combat burnout, and continue moving forward in your journey.
Focus on the process not the outcome.
When you focus on the process, you can see the detail of what you are doing. You can fine tune how you work to become more efficient in what you do. It will help you understand yourself more in terms of productivity. You will know your active hours and you can capitalize on that.
In this outcome driven world, we will just look at where we are rather than how we got there. This means that in order to measure our capacities, we compare ourselves with others. When you focus on the process, you compare yourself with who you are yesterday rather than who someone else is today.
The goal of the process driven approach to productivity is how much better you are now, compared to who you are yesterday. The more you become better at what you do means you will have a better output.
Your work will be more meaningful because even though you don't produce an output, you are still improving day by day. Thus when you need to produce a output, the quality of your work will show because you didn't just do it to comply, you did it as the fruit of your hard work every day.
Taking breaks
Taking breaks is one of the most obvious ideas when it comes to avoiding burnout. When you take breaks you will have a time to breath and rejuvenate.
This approach change the way I work out. Before, I work out with the goal of reaching a certain number of reps in my sets. I often goal to do 12 reps of push ups for 3 sets. This looks great on paper, but the quality of the reps suffer during the latter part of the workout. Even though I didn't do the complete set of motion for the workout, I still count it because I have to reach the goal of 12 reps. But now, I focus on doing exercise with a timer. I do quality reps within the time frame, when I'm tired, I take a few seconds break then I continue with the workout.
This allows me to do quality reps with the full range of motion resulting to a better overall workout. It also allows me to keep going in the long run.
This technique can also be applied elsewhere in your life. You can work for a certain period of time, then take breaks when your tired. But you need to realize the purpose of the breaks is for you to rejuvenate not to stop completely.
Take breaks with the intention/desire to continue so you can keep going in the long run
The work we need to do will never stop, and at some point we will become tired. But if you focus on the process, and take breaks with the intention to continue, you will have the drive and the energy to face any battle.